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Friday, 11 September 2015

Flying Long Haul with a Toddler

We will be flying to Florida in a few weeks time and aside from the excitement, I'm a little nervous about the 10 hour flight with a toddler! We've flown with Elliot before (last year) but he was under 2 then and sat on our laps. It was also only a 4 hour flight and he slept most of the way. I think this flight may be a little different!

We are flying to Florida with Virgin so we know there will be plenty of things to watch on the seat-back TV but I have a bag of tricks that will hopefully keep Elliot entertained for most of the journey...

Books

The most important items for a long journey - sticker books! I've packed three but I might add to this, they are just such a great thing for entertaining kids. Elliot likes the ones such as the Usborne ones where you have to stick the right items within the right scenery.

"Let's Play Diggers" book - these magnet books are great for travelling and it's a bit more exciting than a standard book which will get read once or twice and then forgotten about!

"The Rabbit who wants to fall asleep" - I've heard lots of things about this book so I had to buy to see if it actually worked. I tried it once and it failed spectacularly - Elliot was more interested in leaping off the sofa! We may need to take drastic measures to get Elliot to nap on the plane so I'm willing to give it another go...

iPad and Headphones

I'll be loading the iPad up with various CBeebies programmes which I'll remember to download a few days before we leave (not on the morning we're due to leave!) and I've also got a couple of albums on standby on my iPod which Elliot likes to listen to in the car. The headphones are a real novelty for him so I'm hoping we can whack on some bedtime stories and he'll doze off ;)

Games

It's a bit tricky with games because Elliot isn't quite 3 yet so alot of games are far too complicated or he just loses interest quickly. I picked up dinosaur top trumps and thought although he's too young to play properly, he might enjoy looking at the pictures of the dinosaurs!

"100 Things for little children to do on a journey" - Picked this up from Amazon and thought out of 100 things, there will hopefully be a few that Elliot enjoys!

Activity Flash Cards - Elliot loves to learn and these flash cards are wipe clean which means we can use them again and again.

Snacks

10 hours is a long time and I'll be packing enough snacks to tide us over until the next mealtime. Nothing that can melt or will get messy but healthier things such as Bear Paws, biscuits and oaty bars. Humzingers are a perfect snack for taking with us - individually wrapped with no added sugar and they also count as 1 of your 5 a day.

Cartons of juice - I'm going to try and time one of these with take-off so it will stop Elliot's ears from popping.

Arty Fun

Play Doh might seem like a crazy thing to take on a plane but we can get at least half an hour of entetainment from these little pots! I've packed a couple of cutters too but I'm sure we'll end up making multi-coloured sausages.

Crayons - an obvious choice but looking at all this stuff I realise I haven't packed a colouring book, doh!

Bribery

If all else fails, I have three of these bad boys to break out!! A plastic egg containing a little packet of jelly beans, some stickers and some kind of plastic tat - Elliot loves them!

What are you essentials for keeping little ones amused on long journeys?

Great list and lots to keep him busy during the flight! We do a lot of coloring and stickers when we travel. There's also a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse coloring app that my son likes, and a Legos Duplo Trains app. And plenty of snacks always help throughout the journey. The airport you fly out of might have a play area where Elliot can blow off some steam before the flight and hopefully get tired enough for a nap. I've just started reading "The Rabbit who wants to fall asleep" this week to my son and after one failed attempt, I'm actually starting to see results. Sometimes Little T gets up and walks around the room, but I just carry on reading and eventually he flops back onto the bed and curls up next to me, mellowed out. So far it works much better than anything I've tried to get him to sleep. Hope all goes well with your planning and have a great trip to Florida!

I am just about to make this journey with my one year old. I've already gotten a small toy he has never seen or played with before and I plan to bring about another 10 small things. Snacks and drinks. Pray for the best!

About Me

I'm Elaine, I'm 35 and I live in beautiful Poole on the South Coast. I'm mum to 4 year old Elliot and baby Erin who was born in January 2017.
I write about our days out, local attractions, things to do in Dorset, pregnancy, toy reviews and lots more!